Restaurateurs often offer freshly brewed beverages, such as coffee or tea, to their customers or guests. To brew sufficient quantities, institutional or industrial brewers are often used in places like restaurants, hotels, and cafeterias. Industrial brewers, however, can require significant counter space in either a kitchen or self-serve location within the establishment. Therefore, operators wish to minimize the quantity of separate brewers in use. Restauranteurs, however, often wish to provide more than one variety of freshly brewed beverages, for example, coffee with and without caffeine. In other instances, to avoid a gap in availability, restauranteurs prefer to have one dispenser or brewer with the beverage available, while a second dispenser or brewer is actively brewing a subsequent batch.
To address these concerns, several brewing machines have been designed or retrofit to support dual dispensers. These are sometimes referred to as multiple dispenser brewing systems. FIG. 1 shows a brewer 10 according to one version of the prior art. The brewer 10 is an industrial brewer capable of making batches of coffee or tea in excess of two liters. The brewer 10 includes a hood 12 configured to support a brew basket (not shown). The brewer 10 can also include one or more dispensers 16 positioned generally below the hood 12. Attached to a bottom side of the hood 12 are a pair of spaced apart rails 18 that are configured to support the brew basket. A spray head 20 is supported on the hood 12 between the pair of rails 18 and is configured to dispense a solvent, such as hot water, into the brew basket. The spray head 20 can be gravity fed, or can add water to the brew basket under additional pressure. One or more stop posts 22 can extend from the bottom side of the hood 12 to position the brew basket below the spray head 20. In some cases, brewers 10 may not have such stop posts. As is known to one of ordinary skill in the art, the brewer 10 can have additional systems and subsystems to facilitate the brewing or steeping processes used to extract consumable elements from a beverage making medium, such as ground roasted coffee beans or dried tea leaves. Possible additional systems and subsystems (not shown) include control systems, heating systems, and water receiving systems as known in the art.
The present disclosure describes an improved brew basket for selectively dispensing beverage extract into the one or more dispensers 16.
In one embodiment, a brew basket is described that can have a handle and a body attached to the handle. The body can provide an upper chamber and a lower chamber. A top opening to the upper chamber can be substantially circular with a center C. A floor of the upper chamber can provide a shelf for initially supporting a beverage medium filter pack above the lower chamber. When viewed from above, the shelf can be substantially rectangular. A discharge port can be located at a bottom of the lower chamber and offset from the center C when viewed from above.
In another embodiment, a brew basket is described that can have a handle and a body attached to the handle. A top opening to the body can be substantially circular with a center C. An imaginary arrow from the center C bisecting the handle can define a handle direction. A discharge port of the body, when viewed from above, can be offset from the center C. A rim can extend from the top opening to support the brew basket between a pair of rails of a brewer. When positioned between the pair of rails, the brew basket can be rotatable between a neutral position and a dispensing position by rotation around a vertical axis passing through the center C. The handle direction is parallel with the pair of rails when the brew basket is in the neutral position, and the handle is rotated toward a respective one of the rails in the dispensing position. The rim can be configured to interact with a stop post of the brewer to translate the brew basket relative to the brewer while the handle is rotated from the neutral position to the dispensing position.
Yet other embodiments of the present disclosure include methods of funneling a solvent from a spray head to a selected one of a pair of dispensers, wherein the spray head is part of a brewer that also includes a pair of rails and a pair of stop posts. The method can comprise inserting a brew basket between the pair of rails until a rim of the brew basket abuts at least one of the pair of stop posts. The method can further comprise rotating the brew basket relative to the pair of rails while the rim remains in contact with at least one of the stop posts such that contact between the rim and the at least one stop post during rotation causes shifting of the brew basket along the pair of rails.
These and other aspects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art after a reading of the following description of the preferred embodiments, when considered in conjunction with the drawings. It should be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed.